Page - 246 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Volume 3:2

246 | www.limina-graz.eu Chiara Zuanni | Heritage in a digital world The role of platforms in shaping online experiences This section will highlight how the characteristics of online social net- working platforms, on which heritage content is disseminated, discussed, and encountered by a variety of stakeholders and audiences, can be consid- ered through the lenses of posthumanism in order to better understand the role of technology and the patterns of online navigation and consumption of heritage audiences. Cristina Alaimo and Jannis Kallinikos (2017) have highlighted how “platform user engagement and networking are considered as being mediated, or plat-formed to deploy a neologism, by the conventions, design choices, and instrumentalities of social media technologies, and by the socioeconomic context in which social media qua organizations are operating” (Alaimo/Kallinikos 2017, 175). They defined as “encoding” the process by which social media platforms constrain the users in specific behavioural patterns and data production activities (e. g. sharing, liking, commenting, following, tagging, posting). I argue therefore that encountering heritage online implies a negotiation of “traditional” factors driving heritage audience research and the modes of encoding we participate in on social media platforms. In this sense, the formation and circulation of heritage knowledge in the digital sphere is the result of a complex network of interactions, which concern the identity and attitudes of the users as well as the infrastructures of the platforms. It is this entanglement of human and non-human actors that, ultimately, shapes our online experiences. On the one hand, social media users have diverse demographics and digi- tal literacy backgrounds, which lead to different choices in regards of plat- forms, their account settings, and their use of these same platforms. For example, users of Facebook, WeChat, VKontakte, and TikTok, will likely be- long to different geographic areas and age groups, and their communica- tion styles and networks will shape their conversations and experiences. In these regards, an example of a previous analysis I carried out in 2013, in which it was emphasised how heritage-related news were differently con- It is the entanglement of human and non-human actors that, ultimately, shapes our online experiences.